[Title 3 CFR 6920]
[Code of Federal Regulations (annual edition) - January 1, 1997 Edition]
[Title 3 - Presidential Documents]
[Proclamation 6920 - Proclamation 6920 of September 18, 1996]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




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  Presidential Documents
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Proclamation 6920 of September 18, 1996
Establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
A Proclamation
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument's vast and austere 
landscape embraces a spectacular array of scientific and historic 
resources. This high, rugged, and remote region, where bold plateaus and 
multi-hued cliffs run for distances that defy human perspective, was the 
last place in the continental United States to be mapped. Even today, 
this unspoiled natural area remains a frontier, a quality that greatly 
enhances the monument's value for scientific study. The monument has a 
long and dignified human history: it is a place where one can see how 
nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and 
aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage. The monument 
presents exemplary opportunities for geologists, paleontologists, 
archeologists, historians, and biologists.

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The monument is a geologic treasure of clearly exposed stratigraphy and 
structures. The sedimentary rock layers are relatively undeformed and 
unobscured by vegetation, offering a clear view to understanding the 
processes of the earth's formation. A wide variety of formations, some 
in brilliant colors, have been exposed by millennia of erosion. The 
monument contains significant portions of a vast geologic stairway, 
named the Grand Staircase by pioneering geologist Clarence Dutton, which 
rises 5,500 feet to the rim of Bryce Canyon in an unbroken sequence of 
great cliffs and plateaus. The monument includes the rugged canyon 
country of the upper Paria Canyon system, major components of the White 
and Vermilion Cliffs and associated benches, and the Kaiparowits 
Plateau. That Plateau encompasses about 1,600 square miles of 
sedimentary rock and consists of successive south-to-north ascending 
plateaus or benches, deeply cut by steep-walled canyons. Naturally 
burning coal seams have scorched the tops of the Burning Hills brick-
red. Another prominent geological feature of the plateau is the East 
Kaibab Monocline, known as the Cockscomb. The monument also includes the 
spectacular Circle Cliffs and part of the Waterpocket Fold, the 
inclusion of which completes the protection of this geologic feature 
begun with the establishment of Capitol Reef National Monument in 1938 
(Proclamation No. 2246, 50 Stat. 1856). The monument holds many arches 
and natural bridges, including the 130-foot-high Escalante Natural 
Bridge, with a 100 foot span, and Grosvenor Arch, a rare ``double 
arch.'' The upper Escalante Canyons, in the northeastern reaches of the 
monument, are distinctive: in addition to several major arches and 
natural bridges, vivid geological features are laid bare in narrow, 
serpentine canyons, where erosion has exposed sandstone and shale 
deposits in shades of red, maroon, chocolate, tan, gray, and white. Such 
diverse objects make the monument outstanding for purposes of geologic 
study.
The monument includes world class paleontological sites. The Circle 
Cliffs reveal remarkable specimens of petrified wood, such as large 
unbroken logs exceeding 30 feet in length. The thickness, continuity and 
broad temporal distribution of the Kaiparowits Plateau's stratigraphy 
provide significant opportunities to study the paleontology of the late 
Cretaceous Era. Extremely significant fossils, including marine and 
brackish water mollusks, turtles, crocodilians, lizards, dinosaurs, 
fishes, and mammals, have been recovered from the Dakota, Tropic Shale 
and Wahweap Formations, and the Tibbet Canyon, Smoky Hollow and John 
Henry members of the Straight Cliffs Formation. Within the monument, 
these formations have produced the only evidence in our hemisphere of 
terrestrial vertebrate fauna, including mammals, of the Cenomanian-
Santonian ages. This sequence of rocks, including the overlaying Wahweap 
and Kaiparowits formations, contains one of the best and most continuous 
records of Late Cretaceous terrestrial life in the world.
Archeological inventories carried out to date show extensive use of 
places within the monument by ancient Native American cultures. The area 
was a contact point for the Anasazi and Fremont cultures, and the 
evidence of this mingling provides a significant opportunity for 
archeological study. The cultural resources discovered so far in the 
monument are outstanding in their variety of cultural affiliation, type 
and distribution. Hundreds of recorded sites include rock art panels, 
occupation sites, campsites and granaries. Many more undocumented sites 
that exist within the monument are

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of significant scientific and historic value worthy of preservation for 
future study.
The monument is rich in human history. In addition to occupations by the 
Anasazi and Fremont cultures, the area has been used by modern tribal 
groups, including the Southern Paiute and Navajo. John Wesley Powell's 
expedition did initial mapping and scientific field work in the area in 
1872. Early Mormon pioneers left many historic objects, including 
trails, inscriptions, ghost towns such as the Old Paria townsite, rock 
houses, and cowboy line camps, and built and traversed the renowned 
Hole-in-the-Rock Trail as part of their epic colonization efforts. Sixty 
miles of the Trail lie within the monument, as does Dance Hall Rock, 
used by intrepid Mormon pioneers and now a National Historic Site.
Spanning five life zones from low-lying desert to coniferous forest, 
with scarce and scattered water sources, the monument is an outstanding 
biological resource. Remoteness, limited travel corridors and low 
visitation have all helped to preserve intact the monument's important 
ecological values. The blending of warm and cold desert floras, along 
with the high number of endemic species, place this area in the heart of 
perhaps the richest floristic region in the Intermountain West. It 
contains an abundance of unique, isolated communities such as hanging 
gardens, tinajas, and rock crevice, canyon bottom, and dunal pocket 
communities, which have provided refugia for many ancient plant species 
for millennia. Geologic uplift with minimal deformation and subsequent 
downcutting by streams have exposed large expanses of a variety of 
geologic strata, each with unique physical and chemical characteristics. 
These strata are the parent material for a spectacular array of unusual 
and diverse soils that support many different vegetative communities and 
numerous types of endemic plants and their pollinators. This presents an 
extraordinary opportunity to study plant speciation and community 
dynamics independent of climatic variables. The monument contains an 
extraordinary number of areas of relict vegetation, many of which have 
existed since the Pleistocene, where natural processes continue 
unaltered by man. These include relict grasslands, of which No Mans Mesa 
is an outstanding example, and pinon-juniper communities containing 
trees up to 1,400 years old. As witnesses to the past, these relict 
areas establish a baseline against which to measure changes in community 
dynamics and biogeochemical cycles in areas impacted by human activity. 
Most of the ecological communities contained in the monument have low 
resistance to, and slow recovery from, disturbance. Fragile cryptobiotic 
crusts, themselves of significant biological interest, play a critical 
role throughout the monument, stabilizing the highly erodible desert 
soils and providing nutrients to plants. An abundance of packrat middens 
provides insight into the vegetation and climate of the past 25,000 
years and furnishes context for studies of evolution and climate change. 
The wildlife of the monument is characterized by a diversity of species. 
The monument varies greatly in elevation and topography and is in a 
climatic zone where northern and southern habitat species intermingle. 
Mountain lion, bear, and desert bighorn sheep roam the monument. Over 
200 species of birds, including bald eagles and peregrine falcons, are 
found within the area. Wildlife, including neotropical birds, 
concentrate around the Paria and Escalante Rivers and other riparian 
corridors within the monument.
Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431) 
authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public 
proclamation historic

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landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of 
historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned 
or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national 
monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits 
of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible 
with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of 
America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Act of June 
8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby 
set apart and reserved as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National 
Monument, for the purpose of protecting the objects identified above, 
all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the United 
States within the boundaries of the area described on the document 
entitled ``Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument'' attached to and 
forming a part of this proclamation. The Federal land and interests in 
land reserved consist of approximately 1.7 million acres, which is the 
smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the 
objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of this 
monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from entry, location, 
selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land 
laws, other than by exchange that furthers the protective purposes of 
the monument. Lands and interests in lands not owned by the United 
States shall be reserved as a part of the monument upon acquisition of 
title thereto by the United States.
The establishment of this monument is subject to valid existing rights.
 Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to diminish the 
responsibility and authority of the State of Utah for management of fish 
and wildlife, including regulation of hunting and fishing, on Federal 
lands within the monument.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to affect existing permits 
or leases for, or levels of, livestock grazing on Federal lands within 
the monument; existing grazing uses shall continue to be governed by 
applicable laws and regulations other than this proclamation.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing 
withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the national 
monument shall be the dominant reservation.
The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument through the 
Bureau of Land Management, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, to 
implement the purposes of this proclamation. The Secretary of the 
Interior shall prepare, within 3 years of this date, a management plan 
for this monument, and shall promulgate such regulations for its 
management as he deems appropriate. This proclamation does not reserve 
water as a matter of Federal law. I direct the Secretary to address in 
the management plan the extent to which water is necessary for the 
proper care and management of the objects of this monument and the 
extent to which further action may be necessary pursuant to Federal or 
State law to assure the availability of water.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, 
injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not to 
locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

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IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of 
September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twenty-first.
                                                    WILLIAM J. CLINTON  
  

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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD24SE96.086


                                                              Proc. 6921

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